


curse of the love sweater

by loneliestfox



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M, Superstition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 08:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17138216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loneliestfox/pseuds/loneliestfox
Summary: Renjun knits Donghyuck a sweater. It's a sweet and lovely gesture with a cursed backstory that he finds out a day before Christmas.





	curse of the love sweater

**Author's Note:**

> [obviously based on my tweet hehe](https://twitter.com/loneliestfox/status/1076872962332979201)

To say that Renjun was beyond excited about giving Donghyuck his first Christmas gift is clearly an understatement. He had made him a sweater! It was yellow (the colour of Donghyuck) and on its left side by the chest, he had embroidered a sunflower on it. It had taken weeks for him to make it, so it was only appropriate that he reacted as such when a day before Christmas Jisung tells him about the Sweater Curse.

“Stop hitting me!” Jisung yelps as Renjun, in full Renjun-like rage, continues to smack him with the sleeves of the sweater. “I thought you knew!”

“Why would I want to break up with Donghyuck, oh my God!” Renjun exclaims and stops hitting Jisung. He stares at Jisung, who was crouched on the floor of Donghyuck’s and his living room and lets out a tired sigh. “Why would I ever want to break up with him?” He sighs and slumps backwards into his sofa. He glares Jisung and asks, “How do you even know this curse?”

Jisung hesitates for a moment then sits upright. Answers, “Uh, Mark told me about it years back when his ex gave him a sweater. They, like, broke up a few weeks later?”

Renjun wants to cry and buries his face into the fluffy cursed sweater.

  


Donghyuck and Renjun had known each other since junior year in high school but only started dating For Real for real this year after they decided that college roommates don’t usually make out on a daily basis. The transition was easy and made the both of them happier than before. Boyfriend Donghyuck is different only in the sense that he is: 1) Cheesier and 2) Has an inclination to make Renjun fall in love with him even more.

So Renjun wants to give him the best gift to ever gifted, the crème de la crème of Christmas gifts, the paramount of Christmas gifts. But alas.

Renjun has been defeated by a dumb knitting community superstition.

For the next hour after kicking Jisung out of their apartment, he has been scrolling through knitting community websites, trying to find out whether the curse can be avoided or if it’s just a faux curse someone made up. He decides, clinging onto that one (1) stray comment he found about how OP has been married to her husband for 29 years now after she made him a sweater, that it’s going to be okay.

Right?

Right.

This still somehow doesn’t convince Renjun enough as he now finds himself bundled with a puffy jacket zipped to his nose as he goes out in the negatives to find a last minute Christmas present. He wants to cry.

When he steps inside the nearest and unfortunately the least extravagant department store, he does a beeline straight to the record section. He knows what he has in mind and he hopes it’s okay to add more vinyls to Donghyuck’s ever growing collection of vinyls. The recent movie about Queen made Donghyuck be even more into Queen as proven as how Renjun knows the lyrics to I Want To Break Free despite not hearing it even once.

He goes through the racks and finds Bohemian Rhapsody pretty quickly. When the cashier scans the barcode, she gives Renjun a sly grin and shoots, “Last minute gift, eh?”

Renjun shoots her a sheepish grin although in his mind he really wanted to tell her off. Like? As if it was any of her business! Does she know about the Sweater Curse? No!

(Renjun shoots Jisung a text later. `i got hyuck a vinyl. is there such thing as a fucking vinyl curse.` He waits. Then adds, `if u say yes im going to KILL U`.

Jisung’s reply comes quick. `NO! ` The bubble appears then disappears before a whole text comes in. `r u blaming ME for smth the universe controls`.

`i will blame u for everything` .)  
  


After almost slipping down on two sidewalks, missed a pedestrian crossing by two seconds and having to wait for the lift from the 29th floor to come down, what Renjun meets when he steps into his apartment is enough to make him have a breakdown. And he hasn’t even made Christmas dinner.

“Hey, babe,” Donghyuck greets with a wide grin. He holds up the damned sweater, tilts his head and asks, “What’s this?”

“Hyuck,” Renjun starts and manages to grin while shrugging his jacket and backpack off him. Oh my God, he doesn’t want to break up with Donghyuck. He hooks the jacket next to the door and says, “You’re home early?”

Donghyuck was supposed to come back on Christmas day itself, after celebrating Christmas morning with his family back home and then they’ll celebrate together for a day before going to Renjun’s home for New Year’s. This is not according to plan at all.

Donghyuck claps his hands together and leaves the sweater on the sofa. “Yeah!” He says and stands up, walking to Renjun. “My mum moved our pre-Christmas dinner to last night because she was all poor Renjun staying in that cold empty apartment of yours, frowny face and all. So now I’m here! Surprise!” He exclaims excitedly and then his smile falters. “Renjun? Are you okay?”

Renjun isn’t fucking crying, yeah, no, he isn’t. It’s just very cold and he’s a very tiny man with only a limited level of stress that he can handle and this isn’t: it. He cries and Donghyuck appropriately panics, pulling Renjun into a hug.

“Hey, babe. Renjun. What’s wrong?”

Renjun, through choked tears and against Donghyuck’s flannel: “I don’t want to break up with you.”

Donghyuck’s reply comes after five (5) seconds.

“What?” He says, confused, and pulls away from Renjun. He cups Renjun’s cheeks and asks again. “What?”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean by you don’t want to break up with me?”

Oh, right. Context. Renjun sniffles and brings a hand up to wipe his tear-stricken face.

“I made you...that sweater,” Renjun admits.

Donghyuck’s confused face then turns to one of happiness and beams. “It’s beautiful, Renjun! I love it.”

Renjun shakes his head and continues, “No, listen. I made you that sweater not knowing about the Sweater Curse.”

“The what?”

“Sweater Curse,” Renjun corrects.  
  
Donghyuck presses his lips into a thin line and nods, giving space for Renjun to elaborate.

“It’s just, like, this knitting myth that if you give a handmade sweater to your significant other that you have not married you’re going to break up and I? Kinda want to be with you for a long time and I didn’t! Know! I didn’t know about this stupid curse until a few hours ago when Jisung came by with fruitcake! You’re supposed to start small, like, mittens or scarves or fucking socks and guess what I fucking made! A _sweater_! I —”

Donghyuck leans forward and kisses Renjun square on the mouth. His shoulders relax and melts in Donghyuck’s embrace. When they pull away, Donghyuck’s grinning like an idiot.

“You’re rambling, you know?”

Renjun huffs. “Sorry,” he says, voice small. “I wanted to give you the best but —”

“Renjun, it’s a superstition in a fucking knitting community. We won’t break up, especially anytime soon, okay? I won’t let that happen,” he says and it’s so fucking raw and genuine that maybe Renjun is kinda very much in love with him. He glances back to the sweater and grins. “And that’s the best fucking sweater I’ve ever seen.”

“Stop, I really hate you right now,” Renjun whines and pushes Donghyuck away. He walks towards the sofa and picks the sweater up. “Is it really nice?”

Donghyuck comes up behind Renjun and kisses his nape. “The best,” he says and grabs the sweater. He gasps. “Whoa, is that a sunflower? Did you do this by your — this isn’t even an iron-on or something!” He looks at Renjun and pinches his cheek. “You do all this and expect me to hate it? In your dreams.”

“Donghyuck,” he drags and gives him a small smile. Donghyuck’s aligning the sweater with his body and Renjun’s so so in love. Shit. “I really love you.”

Donghyuck looks up then, eyes wide for a second before it softens. It’s the first time Renjun has ever said it. He grabs Renjun’s hand and squeezes them. “I love you, too,” he says and kisses Renjun’s cheek. “You’re the best.”

“I really am,” Renjun replies and goes back to get his backpack. “Since you’ve already seen your Christmas present might as well give you the other one,” he says, getting the vinyl out of his bag.

“You got me two!”

Renjun grins. “Yeah!” He says and brings it to Donghyuck. “I panicked and got you another because I didn’t want to give you the sweater at first,” he says and sits next to Donghyuck. “Oh, well. Do you like it?”

Donghyuck’s grinning so wide, Renjun wonders if it hurts. He flips the vinyl to the back, the front again, then back to the back and places it on the coffee table before attacking Renjun with kisses. Renjun yelps.

“I love it!” He says it like a mantra as he continues to pepper kisses all over Renjun’s face. He pulls away and smiles. “I love you.”

Renjun giggles and pushes Donghyuck away. “Disgusting,” he says. Renjun’s about to stand up to start making dinner when Donghyuck pulls him back down. He shoots him a look. “What?”

“Should I give your gift now, too? Since I already got mine?”

“But then what do we get to see tomorrow morning?”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. Says, “Each other.” A smack. “I am right!”

“I don’t really mind when I get it, Hyuck.” The _as long as it’s from you_ part is silent.

“I’ll give it to you now then,” he says. He reaches down into his jeans’ pocket and out comes a small trinket bag. Renjun shoots him a confused look.

“You got me a bag?” He jokes and Donghyuck huffs.

“I got you a bracelet, see!” Donghyuck says and takes the yellow gold bracelet out of the bag. It’s pretty and shiny and Renjun wants to cry for the nth time today. Donghyuck smiles and he looks like an excited puppy. “I got couple bracelets for us. Inside yours has LDH and inside mine is HRJ!” He pauses to look at Renjun’s reaction. “Do you like it?”

“Donghyuck, I wanna cry!” Renjun laughs, throwing his head back and his vision blurs. Donghyuck’s laughing then, too, and pulls Renjun into a hug.

“You’re such a crybaby,” Donghyuck laughs and when Renjun blinks his tears away, he realises Donghyuck is, too.

“Coming from you!”

“You cried first!”

And it’s really nice, Renjun admits, to cry-laugh with your boyfriend, the very one you thought will break up with you as soon as he sees the sweater. Fuck the Sweater Curse and most importantly fuck Jisung to make his day go from worse to The Best.

  


When The Boys Who Can’t Go Back Home For Christmas Because Money aka Jisung, Chenle, Jeno, and Jaemin come over for Christmas dinner later that night, Renjun pulls Jisung to the kitchen by the ear.

“Renjun, it’s Christmas, c’mon, I already said sorry —”

“I wanted to say thank you,” Renjun said, finally letting go of Jisung’s ear. “Thanks for telling me about the Sweater Curse.”

“Oh,” is the only thing Jisung could muster. “No problem?”

That night, too, Renjun can not stop pulling up his sleeves to subtly flaunt his bracelet. The LDH on it tinkles under the fluorescent light and he smiles. He’s so, so happy. When the guests leave, they kiss again.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Donghyuck says, pulling away and rests his forehead against Renjun’s.

“We’re so disgusting,” Renjun says, laughing. He leans forward again and says, “Merry Christmas, Hyuck.”

**Author's Note:**

> merry christmas! and to those who aren't celebrating happy holidays angels!! (人´∀｀)．☆．。．:*･°


End file.
